Man from the northeast in the english city of Newcastle Upon Tyne will make history on tuesday when he becomes one of the 1st people inoculated against the coronavirus using a fire as a biotech vaccine is going to be the largest Vaccination Program ever undertaken here in the u. K. Were already excited about it and then we heard their view toward the risks involved. The threat of death of do it to lead to crises is going to come to an end. Really hard to go there its going to start to do is do you hear of. It is you do to a little girl i was really excited i got the opportunity for drawing to you. French president has been accused of failing to challenge egypts president of the human rights abuses president abdul fatah sisi is in france for 2 days for an official visit my corners confirm that hell allow the sale of weapons to egypt because they have a shared mission in fighting terrorism in the region. An update on brics that talks now u. K. Prime minister Boris Johnson is going to be in brussels this week in a bid to thrash out a last minute deal Boris Johnson on the European Commission president sort of on the law and spoke by telephone for 90 minutes before releasing a statement confirming that significant differences remain on the critical issues. And iran is saying a satellite controlled machine gun was used to kill its Top Nuclear Scientist last month the Deputy Commander of irans revolutionary guard says an advanced camera was used to zoom in on the iran has given contradictory details around his death which to iran blames on israel though israel hasnt confirmed or denied any involvement. The stream is coming up next looking at the complexities of fandom. Hi i 3 i k you are watching the stream on todays episode great looking at sport from the perspective of the fact loving sports when they dont allow feedback modern dilemmas of a sports fan thats todays topic inspired by this book the openness i joining us as well hi jessica like really good to see tell welty you are what you do jessica. Yes im just going with her im a freelance journalist i live in austin texas i host a feminist sports podcast called for all down and then of course im the coauthor of this book with. Your feet. High ok so davidson im based in new york im a Sports Writer and a podcast host i host the athletics flagship show the lead and very proud to be the coauthor of this book as well. I love that we have 3 women talking about sport oil spill since they say in america audi is heads name will explode if theyre exploding and when you cheat thats ok jump into the comments section if youve got questions but jessica ok feel about being a sports fan in some ways that big dynamics that go along with that jump into that you cheat comments and each he can be part of the conversation lets talk about these modern dynamics what as a as a sports final Fantasy Sports what that actually means why did you get to get that to like the book just kick. Well i think especially as women in this space were constantly made to feel like we dont belong as sports fans let alone as Sports Writers and journalists and you know i think that a lot of the frustrations that arise from that from being kind of labeled as the unicorn in the room is how i put it really led to you know just wanting to write this book and to do with deeper examination of some of those dilemmas and still why we continue coming back to sports why we love them so much even when they might not always return the favor. Yeah i mean can we really hit it i think the book is structured with 14 chapters i think we ended up with each chapter is a different theme or an issue within sport that if country just sports fan might have so brain trauma racism or sexism l. G. B. T. Q. Athletes racist mascots like this all kinds of stuff and these are the things i can view and i as fans ourselves things that really wrestle with every time that we turn on the t. V. Or go to a match or a game and we just really wanted a space where we could work that out for ourselves and talk to a bunch of people who also feel that way who are experts in these fields and and put all of these different topics in conversation with each other. Such good timing i want to share with us i have 9 here now will people set off the perspiring of n. B. A. Playoff games in protest of the shooting of jake lake so you book came out just around about cody just around about 7 eighths stream activism from players who up until not playing at being told politics and sports activism and spool it was a really tricky area and then kind of it happened and then the plotlines Massive Movement became more prominent around the world so this moment when there was these wild cat strikes phaethon jessica how did you break that down in the book the book was just about coming out so how does that reflect what youve written to really like your philosophy of the difficulty of being a time and seeing after 8 being activists at the same time well i will say that its very strange whenever someone says how good timing the book boys coming out of the time because when kobe hit when really go bare that to be a player tested positive at the entire league shutdown we had a panic moment just then i had a call with our publisher and we were like is it going to be relevant is it going to be insensitive people are dying like do they want to hear about the problems that we have within sport and it turns out because of all of the dilemmas that the pandemic has kind of brought to the forefront and then obviously the black lives Matter Movement really going global as you said its been very strange and very very surreal to see the book be more relevant than we ever thought it could be what we try to unpack we have a chapter in it in the book of specifically about athlete activism and about why basically sticking to sports isnt an option for a lot of people particularly for black men and women in america and for athletes finally realizing how much power they have and how much voice they have and being able to give like speak truth to that power and speak truth to to what theyve actually what they have in their hands has been really something to see. Yes ill just add that to add that in the chapter about sports and politics is a lot about athlete activists because theres a long history of that and what we saw with the Milwaukee Bucks and the w. M. B. A. And all kinds of activism around the world really and sport that history is there but politics and sports are always linked and its been very clear here in the United States as we went through a president ial election that i know a lot of people who are following College Football and its return to the field was part of a president ial debate right that sports often finds itself with in politics as much as we see politics and sport and those 2 things are always mary i always think about the fact that we call them Political Races even the language that we use with them politics has a sports inflection to it because those 2 things are so similar within so many cultures so yeah but you cant stick to sports right so what we saw with the wildcat strikes it was an extreme version of something and there could be and i like to have her on that side of i would say just for the full strength spectrum but this is just part of a long history its. Tell us a story from the book or is that the just just tease people a little bit over the activist who we may not have before. Like whos in the book. Remembering your bugs. We talk about in the book im going to bring. Back the fool taking and me telling me yes thank you is a Tommy Thompson and she many years ago now so we would think it was during the i guess 1st when was that it would have been after 911 so it was you know almost 20 years ago and she was playing in a very small school in basketball Womens College basketball and had her own sort of political awakening and really started to question whether or not the United States flag and the anthem represented her she one of her parents is black and she identifies that way and with all the nationalism after 911 shell really uncomfortable and started to turn her back during the National Anthem and it became a huge story somewhat because the New York Times was right down the road that they could have heard it she had all this National Press and it was it was a kind of action that weve had a lot of conversation around since calling copper neck the n. F. L. Player took a knee a few years ago but we see people like tony who was doing it with even a tiny platform right there was a lot about the principal and what this meant to her and using sport as a place to do that. Im going to share with our audience a quote from the book so i went to the to talk about why theres so much racism in the sport one of the main reasons that devoted sports fans may not feel welcome is that so much of the coverage is created by specific subset of that population mainly white men most of them straight the vast majority says gender. Of sports media cannot be overstated i have heard so many times he is running like a net but across the field look at the bill will not actually and and these are up after this of im wondering if a sports passon else was jennas of color but even you use that saying the naacp can defeat the you start on this one jessica you pick up yeah i its really doesnt matter who is telling me stories and who is doing the coverage and i think thats why we do have a chapter about about sports media and diversity in sports media and the need for that and exactly what you said because we would not as people of color frame these stories in the same way and it matters to have a lot more voices and a lot more perspectives coming in especially when the athletes that we cover are people ringback of color and arent just systemd or white men. Its also it speaks to a broader problem that we have in media particularly United States but i think we probably have has this problem in media throughout the world where the people in power look like the people who are telling the stories of the people who are doing the journalism and what we wanted to do in west chapter in our book was really highlight the fact that there are other people out there doing this work and they need to be heard and they need to be read and we need to support that. Oh yeah one of my favorite parts of the book is when you just listen to janis it was like a school its janis fiasco and it was going after a number of the number after that was if you didnt know that many you definitely know a load by the end of that chapter jessica sorry go ahead. Yeah i know and that chapter is different than all the other ones in the book it has a different format its much more almost like an oral history and what we did exactly what you said there are a lot of female journalists in that chapter and we asked them to tell us something about their experience within the field and we really left it open but we also just asked men of color we asked nonbinary are. A Sports Reporters people whose voices we dont normally get to hear because its really hard to overstate how. White and male sports media is like media in general has a diversity issue in these sorts of whats that going on my worst version of it while. Youve been working and you just look around and describe what you see when youre in a working. I mean can i just say that. Last year i went to the womens world cup and this is my story i dont often and impress boxes so thats not my experience i write a lot on the culture of sports programs and im not impressed boxes and ill never forget last year going to the opener for the mens world cup and perez and walked in and was kind of taken aback about how many men there were there were definitely women there but we all kind of congregated together and what hit me was that theyre sending people to cover it who normally cover soccer or football and so its normally men right and so theyve just shifted them over to cover the women for a month of time and you feel it like there is a physical reaction you have going in there about you recognize your differences sort of as soon as you step in that space. I can say having having been in quite a few press boxes myself you were very aware when you were the only woman in that space you were very aware when youre the only woman of color in particular and i you know i just as a quick story i was covering the n. B. A. Allstar game at Madison Square garden in new york several years ago and you know the way that they have the press seating set up is they have 2 rows basically in the arena where its just pressed and everyone has their headphones on and theyre at their computer typing away and are covering the game and all of that and i noticed the entire press row lift their heads and Pay Attention to what was happening on the court because the cheerleaders took the court and its things like that that make you very aware of when you are the only person who looks like you in the room. I wouldnt sink into. Mascots if you think as you can you look a lot of those and a 2021 i was that the any mascots of native American Indians any mascots that would make us go. Thats not quite right because we think. Its a very good question why were still grappling with this swiss is something that Indigenous People especially in this country have been telling us that they are not ok with for shifty 60 years at this point i think that it has a lot to do with what our identities are and how they are wrapped up into our sports fandom and thats something that we actually interviewed a sports psychologist about about why its so difficult for us to separate these these issues that we have with with with our own fandom and what she said basically was when your sports fandom is formed it tends to be earlier in life and its tends to be a part of your own identity formation so if you are a fan of a team that has a racist native mascot when someone comes along and criticizes that you feel like theyre criticizing you. Theyre criticizing from something very core to your identity even though this is hurtful to people and honestly we had we saw the Washington Football Team change their name and their logo this this summer not out of frankly any goodness of their heart because investors had a problem with it so what we can do is we can follow the money and we can put actual monetary and financial pressure on people to ultimately do the right thing but it is very frustrating that this is still a conversation were having and jessica will tell you there are still even though the Washington Football Team in the n. F. L. Change their name there are still 80 some odd high schools that still have that name and still have some kind of a logo that is problematic and it especially here especially in the United States it runs deep into our core also of our american identity and the foundation of this country based on that kind of violence and it really is difficult for people to try to reconcile those things ladies can i play a video comment fool here this is from Elizabeth Holloway shes a spokesperson for the exeter chiefs and the change in the x. To chiefs a united rugby team and just before we take a little bite from her she explains how when they are trying to talk about this the way that youve been speaking about it. The way that you test jessica that the fans got really aggressive and they didnt want to hear about racism actual and had a little bit more and hes a question for you. Additionally the hypocrisy that were seeing from people like the premiership who run the competition in england and the r. F. U. The Rugby Football Union who are the regulator for rugby in the u. K. They both launched rugby against racism type initiatives yet when we raised the contradiction with them the exter is allowed to carry on using racist chants racist logos racist imagery they tell us that its something completely different its not racism its not related its completely different so that hypocrisy of why people say theyre against racism say theyre against causing offense once to have inclusion and equality yet dont think that this is a problem be really interested in your views on that do we just have to be patient and keep trying to educate and share these experiences or is there anything more we can to. Thats so interesting to me because im so happy to have her here on this exeter chiefs as the example i always use of how this has breached the american borders. These images in other parts of the world and i think oh man thats such a good question its such a hard one because here in the United States weve had indigenous native people for decades half a century telling people in power that these mascots are not honoring anyone that they are in fact bad and they should be changed and in that same time weve seen other teams change their logos change their team mascot its a its possible its not like this is an Impossible Task we have seen it in action and yet still things dont change and one thing ill point out i did some research and part of the chapter of we someone did i psychologists sociologist did a study about this and what they found is not just that need it that they have mascots make native people feel worse about themselves which that should be enough alone but that they actually make white people feel better about themselves and so youre really up against some big societal forces here and trying to get this change and i think what elizabeth this harking about there the people that love the exeter chiefs feel and this goes back to it could be thoughts had to they feel implicated in that racism when you tell them that theres something wrong with the mascot and maybe what they need is to really sit with the fact that maybe they are implicated and they cover really figure that out. I am looking at so